Dialogue with LaRouche
This is the transcript of the question-and-answer period which followed Lyndon LaRouche's opening statement at his Sept. 24, 2010 webcast.
Freeman: I want to welcome audiences that have gathered around the world, to listen to this broadcast. I understand that we have audiences gathered on just about a dozen university campuses all over Ibero-America, especially centered in Colombia. We also do have today's proceedings being broadcast into a room in the Mexican Congress, as well as other locations. And if I've missed recognizing you, it's not because we don't appreciate the fact that you're participating; it's simply that we have more things here than I can mention.
I am going to start with some questions that we have from Russia. The first question comes from the deputy editor of the Russian publication Zavtra, and his first question is this: "Mr. LaRouche, concerning the removal of Larry Summers, and another four of Obama's top officials, I must ask you: What's up with this? What is the reason, and what forces are behind these decisions? Can they be construed to be moves in a positive direction?"
LaRouche: Well, the term "positive direction" is a debatable one, not because the removal of them is not nice—it is nice—as a matter of fact; it's insufficient, is the problem. But we are in a process—we have to understand globally—I think, the point is, the tendency has always been, to try to interpret a factor inside a process, as affecting the process, rather than trying to look from the top down, at the process as a whole. We are now in a situation, where factors, local factors, or specific factors, in government or in economic processes, really do not determine the course of history. You have to take it from the top down.
What you're dealing with, is a period in which all significant developments, are systemic. They are not local; they are not particular; they are systemic. Like the NAWAPA project. NAWAPA is a systemic project. It is not a local project. It's changing the system of not only North America, but it has an impact in changing the systems in Russia. For example, take the case of Russia, which is a country you're familiar with.
The problem here is, we are going to have to deal, as some people have recognized recently, particularly under the impact of this discussion of NAWAPA, with a question of an Arctic area! Now, you look at this area. Russia is an Arctic nation, in part. A crucial part of Siberia, and also other parts; Canada and the United States are Arctic, in particular; and these and other nations. So, this area of the Arctic is very special on this planet. The North Pole is a very important area for this planet as a whole. You take the Aurora Borealis: It shows that the concentration of electromagnetic processes, which affect the Earth in terms of the Sun, have a very special attraction for this area of the Arctic.
So therefore, we are now in a situation, where we have to deal with this as a common concern. We also have, as nations, the concern that what is happening in China, is a threatened crisis, which threatens us all. Not because of China, but because the crisis would affect us all. India, similarly, may seem like a less-imperilled area, but nonetheless, it is! It's got a lot of poor people there, and it's a costly thing. There's no remedy at present for the amount of poverty in India, without some changes globally.
We are also dealing with all kinds of things, with various kinds of threats. So, we have to think in global terms; we have to think in terms of total systems, on the way down. And NAWAPA merely typifies that.
For example, you can do nothing in Africa, unless you're willing to act globally. You're not operating on the scale of looking at this Sahara, this desert, this creeping desert. If you don't look at some of these other problems, you're not doing anything! So therefore, we have to think in systemic terms, not local terms, and not local factors.
So, what has happened now, globally, is a general breakdown crisis of the entire world system. That includes an internal breakdown crisis of the United States! As I speak to you today, we are looking at the disintegration, sudden disintegration, of the entire U.S. economy! Which can occur at any time. This disintegration is, admittedly, caused largely by deliberate intention of the British Empire, by the Inter-Alpha Group, which has been the biggest orchestration factor, in trying to destroy the U.S. economy. But nonetheless, the effect is global. And if we don't fix this problem, if we let the United States go under to Jacob Rothschild's Inter-Alpha Group, the imperial Inter-Alpha Group, which controls 70% of the world's financial activities—70% of the world's banking is controlled by the Inter-Alpha Group! So therefore, if we don't deal with these things, we're stuck. So, again, top down.
Now, what's happened, of course, is the breakdown of the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration, which was created by the British Empire, is now being destroyed by the British Empire. The policies which the British, through Obama, are imposing upon the United States, are the cause of this U.S. crisis. So therefore, if we can not, in the United States, have a top-down change in the Presidency of the United States, and the behavior of the Congress, the entire world is going into a general breakdown crisis, which will last as a Dark Age for at least three generations!
So, what has happened to poor Larry Summers—who's actually something else, he's not a season of the Earth—what has happened to Summers and company, is only significant in the sense that it's bad news. Not bad news, in the sense that they're going—they should have gone a long time ago! They shouldn't have been there in the first place! But their going away in this fashion is not necessarily a sign of good weather. It's a sign of a breakdown in this Administration.
Now, if you have a breakdown of the government of any leading power on this planet, with the present world financial-economic crisis, you have a threat to the existence of the entire planet. And therefore, that is the way you have to look at it.
So the question is, then, from a Russian standpoint, from my putting myself in a position of Russian interest, and in Russia as a partner—or should be a partner—of the United States, together with China, India, and other countries, on these kind of questions: How do we get installed, now, the kinds of positive reforms, both within nations, and as cooperations among nations, which is going to take away, what is now the imminent threat of a general breakdown crisis of the entire planet! You could have, by Christmastime of this year—both U.S. Christmas and Russian Christmas—a common-interest collapse of the world system. And both Christmases get together, to enjoy a mutual collapse.
So therefore, that's what we have to worry about.
What is needed, is, the positive steps of sweeping reforms, which will get us out of this mess! Now, the problem, here, is that there is no actual development. What is called "development" is not development. Because development has to be net development. Less than net development is collapse. So, if you praise a development as being "positive," which is less than what is required, that's a disaster!
And therefore, the question is, the bringing together quickly—more quickly—on a most accelerated basis, for, say Russia, the idea of bringing together Russia, China, the United States, and other countries, now, as a pilot agreement, on measures of physical-economic action, to save this planet, is what the important issue is. And every particular development, should be, today, looked at from that standpoint: What is the importance of a particular development, in what it represents, either as something positive, negative, or a provocation to recognize what is the measure we must take, in order to prevent an onrushing, present disaster.
Obama: The Worst Possible Thing You Could Get
Freeman: The next question is from the same source: "Mr. LaRouche, this question is a more fundamental one, which concerns what lies ahead for us, with the collapse of Obama and his Administration. Doesn't this hold the potential, doesn't this mean a revival, of ultra-Bushism, in the form of Sarah Palin, or similar figures? It certainly appears from here, that things are headed in that direction, and especially toward a limited and brutal war against the nation of Iran. Would you please comment?"
LaRouche: I wouldn't bother worrying about that. Because, you've got in Obama, the worst possible thing you could possibly get. Don't think that Obama is somehow worse than Bush. Obama just wasn't around long enough to become worse than Bush—but he's already worse than Bush.
You've got in the case of Obama, President Obama, you have a man whose policies are those of Adolf Hitler! Now, some people won't say so, but it's true! His medical policies, his health-care policies, are identical with those of Adolf Hitler, the Hitler policy that led directly to what is called genocide. Tens of millions of people were killed by Hitler under this policy! And a President of the United States, under the influence of the British monarchy, has imposed exactly the same policy, a Hitler policy, as a health-care policy—voted up, by the Congress, under pressure from President Obama! If you're over 50 years of age, you're in trouble!
No! There is no good in this Obama. Getting rid of Obama, is a damned good thing! The question is, what do you replace it with? George Bush didn't descend to the level of evil, that Obama has done! And the worst thing is the effect on the people: The people who would put up with Obama are far worse than the people who put up with Bush, inherently. Because, he has committed crimes that Bush was not capable of starting!
And you want to think that going back, to people who are less competent—that's no good either! Because they didn't have the guts to be as evil as Obama is: Obama is a reincarnation of the Emperor Nero and Adolf Hitler. And Bush was not. Bush was bad—terrible! His father was no damned good, and his grandfather was no damned good! His grandfather actually funded putting Hitler into power in Germany! Not a very good family; not a very good reputation.
No: You can't talk about just negatives. No, a fight in opposition to the bad guy—that's not politics. It's forcing through the good guy! It's the good guy that's important! It's the good policy that's important! You think it's fighting against negative policies, as dangers: No! No, no. No, no. no. No, no: That's not the problem. The problem is the lack of determination, to make those reforms which are essentially international reforms, in terms of international agreements on reforms; those things are what is essential.
Russia has been destroyed! Destroyed by what? Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, and George H.W. Bush, and also, by the bad advice which Russia has gotten, from British intelligence. That is, the British intelligence organization, which likes to tease Russia, called the Laxenburg, Austria IIASA organization. IIASA is a British intelligence organization! And it's the key factor, in bad policies, contributing to the destruction of Russia. So, if you got that kind of advice, you don't need the other kind.
No. Don't worry about these things. These are false issues, they're rumors, they're distractions. The issue now is, the present international monetary-financial system has brought the world to the point that civilization on this planet will not survive, unless we overthrow that system! That's our challenge. Don't worry about anything else: Obama's going to go anyway. It's throwing out the trash.
Getting to a Thermonuclear Fusion Platform
Freeman: I will come back to Russia in a moment, but first I have a question from Ukraine, specifically from Pavlo Viknyanski, in Kiev. He is the leader of the Student Republic Movement in Ukraine. And his question is: "Mr. LaRouche, in your view, what are the major, globally significant infrastructure projects, which we should be participating in here in Ukraine, looking at this in the context of the NAWAPA project, and considering at the same time, the enormous technology and resource potential of Ukraine? I am trying to find an answer to this, not from the standpoint of Ukraine itself, but from the standpoint of planet-wide dimensions."
LaRouche: Well, go back to platforms again. The platform of energetics, without which there is no hope for humanity, because of the condition we are in now, means that we not only depend upon the uranium-thorium cycle, and its various ramifications as a basis for power, but we have to get to thermonuclear fusion now. While we can get to thermonuclear fusion, most easily, probably, at the present time, there is something going on in this area, which is important. But the helium-3 fusion process is the one which is most accessible, and it's relevant, because the Sun has been depositing the helium-3 isotope on the Moon for a long period of time. And if you want to start something, like an interplanetary exploration, your best propulsion, if you're going to use human beings, move human beings around—I mean, you can move things, objects, robots and so forth, you can move them around at 300 days to get to Mars, is not really a problem. But putting human beings in a spaceship for 300 days, for a Mars trip, they may not arrive there in good condition, for various reasons.
So therefore, the important thing, here, is the progress. And right now, we are at a platform, where you can not maintain this planet, and all the people on the planet, with its present population, you can not maintain it without operating on the uranium-thorium level of fission and thermonuclear fusion. So, the breakthrough into a true, controllable thermonuclear-fusion process, is the level at which society depends.
In other words, that's your platform, as I described "platform" earlier. That's your platform. We must be at a thermonuclear level, and going to a higher level of matter/anti-matter reaction types of actions. We must be moving in that direction.
That means that we have to develop also a scientific cadre basis, which is capable of continuing that kind of a development and its applications. That's where we stand now. So, the emphasis has to be on that. We have to define a platform, which we can generally express often in terms of these kinds of criteria. Raising that platform level to the platform for human existence and production is what's crucial.
And the problem, of course, in Ukraine, just to speak of it, the problem has been that, when Ukraine was separated from the Soviet Union, the high level of technological capability which was embedded in the cadres—the scientific and related cadres of the Ukrainian population, productive population—was shifted into the damned belief in bizniz. And this is the greatest piece of junk in the world. You have a whole generation of Ukrainians, who had been earlier, in good part, trained as scientists, were now trained as businessmen. And the business is gone, and they're gone.
So therefore, the crisis of the Ukrainian economy was actually orchestrated by these kinds of processes. The important thing, therefore, particularly to a nation like Ukraine, is to get back quickly into the highest level of present technology, and to operate from that level of technology as a minimum standard of what should be the standard level of technology for the economy as a whole. And that can be achieved most easily in a situation like Ukraine, by cooperation with other countries on these kinds of projects; to raising the plateau level of productivity, and technological productivity, that is crucial for humanity as a whole.
And we all, if we are sensible nations, realize that there has to be a fraternity of nations which concentrates on cooperating with each other, to insure that each nation has its own participation in raising this level of technology, as reflected in energy-flux density, for example, as a good standard rule of thumb.
What Is Value?
Freeman: Now we go back to Russia. We have a series of questions from one of the institutes at the Russian Academy of Sciences, but we don't have time to entertain all of them. I'm going to condense the first two questions into one, and then we will move on.
The question is: "Mr. LaRouche, you often state the very true idea that money is not a measure of value. My question is, shouldn't we modify this statement by adding one word, and that is, that money is not a measure of use value. Because money does not express the true measure of the worth of a thing, and even more so, can not put a value on a creative idea. It seems that money reflects only exchange value, but that it can not express the quality of human labor, or the quality of life.
"Related to this, wouldn't it be a more viable argument for the New Economy, if, after, on the one hand, we make the negative statement that money is not a measure of value, that we then go to the essential question of: What is the true measure of value? Obviously, you give the answer to the question in your theories, when you speak about the criterion of the higher hypothesis of the economy. This criterion is potential relative population growth, expressed through rising physical economic productive powers of labor per capita, per household, per square kilometer. But isn't that still a statistical criterion evaluation of the results of production? How do we go about uncovering an essential equivalence of exchange of different types of things?
"I guess what I am really asking is: What is the puzzle of the great power of money? What is the value equivalent of money? And, what is actually flowing in so-called monetary flows?"
LaRouche: Well, the point is, it's very much of an embarrassment. Marx is an embarrassment to a Marxist, because first of all, he was a British agent. That was not so bad, because he had his own other things, but the theory stunk. And the theory came from, actually from British liberalism. And it was actually created by a filthy character called Paolo Sarpi, who dates essentially from the late 16th Century, and comes into the 17th Century, in what was the attempt to crush the great reform led by Nicholas of Cusa, in economics and science, which was launched in 1492 by the Habsburgs, and took the form of religious warfare which was organized by Venice, through a person who was also a failed personality—Henry VIII, who was a degenerate. And Henry VIII was run by Venice, in an attempt to destroy the launching of the system of republics, which had been launched out of the Florentine reform in the middle of the 15th Century.
So then, along came another Venetian agent, Paolo Sarpi, who organized a system which was an anti-Aristotelian system. Now, Aristotle's system was no good, either. Russia was cursed, of course, by Aristotle, and also cursed by Sarpi, but in the form of Karl Marx and Adam Smith.
Now, what happened was, the question of value; this is the crucial question here: The question of value, or the nature of economic value. First of all, the very idea that value can be located in an object, is nonsense. This is one of the reasons why our economists generally are so incompetent. A product does not have intrinsic social value; it can not. What we use as a money system, was developed in its successful form, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, up until the time that the colony was repressed.
What was introduced to Europe from the United States, or what became the United States, in the Massachusetts Commonwealth, was the concept of a credit system. Now, the U.S. Constitution is based on a credit system, not a monetary system. The only times we have had a monetary value put on the United States was from British oppression. The British shoved it down our throats. The American System of the Constitution does not believe in an Adam Smith system! Adam Smith is something which is laughable; only fools believe in Adam Smith. Only fools are taken in by the idea of use-value and exchange-value. Because no product has an intrinsic value.
I've already stated earlier here, on the question, that value is located, how? It's located in the platform of development. Now, the platform of development is typified by, for example, progress from Transatlantic systems, or maritime systems. Maritime systems are a higher level of culture. Therefore, they are more productive than non-maritime systems. The maritime system itself is a universal platform which defines a whole range of levels of value, economic value.
Then you had the riparian system. And what the riparian system did, as developed by Charlemagne—and the first modern economy was actually developed under Charlemagne, because Charlemagne was the first one to define a currency and certain other things. But the riparian system was crucial. When you connected the river systems of the inner European continent, you connected them by canals, and the system developed by Charlemagne exists to the present day! That's the advantage of Europe; it's the development of the riparian system. And this, the riparian system is the basis for the development of the railway system, which is more efficient than the riparian system, but it was modelled on the riparian system.
And therefore, then, the use of higher forms of power—steam power, again, a higher level. So where is the increase in value? The increase of value lies in a properly defined infrastructure—public infrastructure, or what is called public infrastructure. Not in individual investment.
Now what happens is, somebody comes along and makes an invention, which, in general, is an improvement within the context of a certain kind of infrastructure, which I called these levels. And therefore, what is value? Value is determined by the effect—economic value—is by the effect of the introduction and spread of a technology which increases, which exploits the level of the platform, to improve things within the platform. In other words, you have a certain platform of development: like the progress to a maritime system is a platform. The progress to a riparian system for development of the interior of planets, of territories, is a system. The addition of power, powered transportation, which is railway systems, as opposed to simply water navigation, by various methods. Then, the development to still higher levels.
We are now at the level of nuclear, thermonuclear fusion; that's a platform. It has a whole area of things. Now, with the increase in productivity per capita and per square kilometer, a change through things like NAWAPA, you are going to have another leap in general productivity of all people. A higher standard of living.
Now in the end, when you're talking about use value, you should be talking about the standard of living, the quality of life per capita, which you are achieving by these developments. So therefore, this whole idea of exchange value and use value is nonsense.
Now, what happened is, with this experience of humanity in making breakthroughs in systems, you would think that we would base our definition of value on development of systems, the maturation of systems. But we don't; we talk about individual products, individual initiative. And individual initiatives often break down to some form of thievery or another, which is not a particularly good idea.
Therefore, what happened is, now Sarpi comes along. Aristotle, first of all, said that, you know, there is no such thing as creativity. Human creativity is not allowed; that's Aristotle. And they got into trouble, theologically, because they applied it to theology, and their theology was, when the universe was completed, God went dead. That's Aristotle. And this was pointed out by a number of people who criticized Aristotle relatively, in the times of Christ, in the time of the Christians, and said this was not true. God did not become non-creative, when Aristotle demands that God becomes non-creative, and therefore, Man is non-creative. And you're having a fixed system.
Well, this is the system of slavery, the system of serfdom. Children must be limited to what their father, and grandfather, and so forth did before them. They must not change things.
So, in any case, the value lies essentially in two things: It lies in the breakthroughs to a higher level of system: a platform. Then, within the context of the platform, mankind makes contributions which exploit the potential of the platform. The circulation of these ideas, improves mankind's ability to live, and ability to progress. And we always should be searching for a platform at a still higher level. So we then determine what, in terms of these platforms, these values, how much must be given to each aspect of society, of the productive process.
Agriculture: We made a revolution in the United States in terms of agriculture during the period of the Civil War. These kinds of things. This determines value.
So therefore, you take a credit system, which is based on the platform you're operating on, as in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. You have a certain level of productivity which you know is available. So therefore, you assess the benefit that you're going to get from production per capita, by that platform. That's the value; that's what you're using up. You are using the contribution to that platform. Now you make an addition to this, in terms of additional products, even without a technological change, but somebody just makes a slight change, an improvement, produces production that wasn't there before, and you know what the relative values are in terms of a credit system. That is, how much you must allow to compensate for using up something that you have invested in.
So, what we use, what we actually should use; and when we have done it, we have succeeded. We should use actually a planned system of values, and operate within a planned system of values.
FDR's Fixed-Exchange-Rate System Worked
Now, when we were operating under a fixed-exchange-rate system, as defined by Franklin Roosevelt, we had a successful system. That's what he developed. It continued into 1968. And Kennedy fought to maintain that higher level, by what he did, first of all, in forcing London not to shut down the steel industry; one of his first fights. Then he fought for what? For the space program, which gave us more technological progress and productivity than anything which had been developed before that time. It was tremendous. It was shut down in 1967 and '68. We were getting the space program developed, but the attrition in what we were accomplishing was higher.
For example, the space program was giving us ten cents worth of technology for every penny we spent on it, in terms of technology. We shut it down. So therefore, it's by going with this platform approach, that you can find a level at which you can say, "Well, at this level, this is what things cost," and therefore, if you're going to make an investment, you're going to take this cost into account, and that's the price you're going to put on it.
But, what we really try to do, since there's always attrition, you have to always go to a higher level of development. So, you estimate these things, and if you are a competent manager, if you are a competent industrialist, you are a competent engineer in a firm, you can probably estimate what this will be. So, your capital investment is good guesswork, by a specialist who knows what the devil they're doing. It's that simple. There is no intrinsic value.
But what happens with Adam Smith or with Sarpi—and Adam Smith is nothing but a copy of Sarpi: Adam Smith says mankind knows nothing about value. All mankind knows is pleasure and pain. That's Adam Smith—pleasure and pain. And then the monetary system is a result of that. So, the problem here is, that when people use these ideas of Adam Smith, who says that mankind's behavior is not based on knowledge of what the effect is; mankind's behavior is based on pleasure and pain. They don't like pain, and they want pleasure. That's Adam Smith; that's the British system.
Now therefore, if you have a control over the monetary process, by controlling finances, now you can determine who lives and who dies. And you get by with it by the pleasure-pain principle.
And the United States always worked well under our system. For example, we made a miracle in the Civil War, in defeating the British, who were trying to destroy us in the launching of the Civil War. Then, the British intervened with the corrupt people in their own ranks, like Wall Street types, and we shut it down. We still survived; we produced miracles in production in terms of the early part of the 20th Century, despite Teddy Roosevelt, and they shut that down in the 1920s, which caused the Great Depression.
Roosevelt turned around, and he launched it again, launched the process again, taking us up from the dirt, and we achieved miracles of production, beyond anything humanity had ever seen before in history, in that period. So the driver of economy is these great projects which are based on the concept of the scientific-technological levels of platforms, which are generally basic economic infrastructure. It involves transportation systems and public systems as much as anything else. And then making improvements within the context of these platforms.
You have a certain level of technology which is available; you educate people to be able to work with that level of technology. They go to universities and other things, and they learn that technology. And you know they can produce something that you want, which is within the level of that technology. And then there's a slow increment, and then sometimes you get some revolutions coming along, and people quickly learn the revolution in technology. They apply it to something else, and your platform rises, your platform of performance rises. And that's the point.
You have the problem in Russia today. The greatest problem I see in Russia today, is the influence of the IIASA. The IIASA is nothing but British intelligence. It's Bertrand Russell, typical. IIASA was created by Bertrand Russell. It was created out of the King's College section of Cambridge University. And IIASA is the same thing as British intelligence. It is British intelligence. And IIASA agents are agents of British intelligence. I fought these guys back years ago. They are all British agents. Khrushchov was a British agent.
Now this negotiation in Paris is set up. De Gaulle has invited President Eisenhower; and they've invited Khrushchov to come to confer on a program which de Gaulle had called "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals": The idea of a peaceful cooperation. This idea of this peaceful cooperation came from Franklin Roosevelt, and came from the agreement between Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin and some other people. This was destroyed by the British through Truman.
So then Khrushchov, who was a British agent, and known to be a British agent—and there are many suspicions about what his role was at certain points—destroyed that with a disruption. Khrushchov organized a conflict with the United States, that project, in order to disrupt the relationship with the United States.
We operated, those of us who operated in the 1970s, to break through. And I got an approach from a Soviet general who was working in the United Nations, saying we should, the United States government, the new Administration of Reagan, should talk with the Soviet Union about this kind of problem, which had been pushed already by people like Eisenhower and by de Gaulle earlier; and also by MacArthur in his own terms—this kind of conception.
That was disrupted, by, again, what? Because on the Soviet side, you had British agents, and I know these guys, I knew them especially from the 1970s. The IIASA: Laxenburg, Austria is a chief paradigm channel for British intelligence to penetrate Russia today. And those are the kinds of things you want to take into account. The problems we have are not simply spontaneous problems of economic systems. There's also a good deal of meddling from the top; and I was involved in the meddling myself, from the other side.
The Enemy Is the British Empire
Freeman: I mentioned at the outset, that we had people gathered at a number of universities across the continent of Ibero-America. I have since learned that in our meeting in the Mexican Congress, there are some 60 people gathered, which include researchers, professors, youth, and others. And during the course of the last hour or so, we have gotten an explosion of questions coming in from these various gatherings. And, what the questions all express is a concern about the benefits and implications of NAWAPA for Mexico in particular, and for Latin America as a whole, in which there is skepticism about guarantees that the benefits will be fair, among all the implicated nations.
LaRouche: There is no such problem. The problem is, that look, I dealt with this in Mexico with President López Portillo. And if people in Mexico will recognize what López Portillo was as President of Mexico, they probably will have a clearer view of U.S.-Mexico relationships inherently, than they will have when they take the opposite view. What has happened is, that then, in 1982, when I had a number of meetings on a number of related questions at the time the Reagan Administration was young, and I had an ear in those quarters, that we had this meeting with people from all over the region; a series of meetings were active—Argentina; less, Brazil, but most of the Spanish-speaking areas; Peru. And since that time, 1982-83, pretty much these countries of South and Central America have been destroyed by successful British intervention, including intervention into U.S. government affairs.
Now today, Mexico has virtually nothing left of the excellent productive potential for economy that it had in 1982. That potentiality was destroyed, and it was destroyed by interests like Henry Kissinger, who was down there on that operation then in 1982. You take the UN proceedings, where President López Portillo addressed the United Nations Organization on this situation, and you look at Mexico then, and you look at it since then, and I will tell you, that Mexico has been systemically destroyed ever since then. And the takeover of the Bank of Mexico by foreign interests, against a sovereign interest, was one of the ways this happened.
I can tell you that in every country that I know of in South America, a similar kind of problem exists. Whenever the United States government is controlled by British interests, that's what happens. Now, if anyone in Mexico, or south of that border, wants to have the interests of their country defended: Get rid of the British influence in your country, and also help us do it in ours. Because you have to look at a project like this as I propose, a project which is designed to succeed. It's a project you need.
Look at Mexico. Look at northern Mexico. What happened to the water project in northern Mexico? What happened to the plan? Gangsters, opium-pushing, drug-pushing gangsters, prevent a project of improving the existing water in that area, which could be managed to increase the agricultural output and raise the standard of living. What is being done? Gangsters tied to drug pushers in the United States and to big, powerful financial interests, British-organized, in Mexico and elsewhere, destroy these countries.
You're talking about the United States as the bugbear? No, we are not the bugbear. Your British friends are. Your British advisors. Look at the oligarchs. Look at the drug pushers. These are the enemies.
Look at the threat to Colombia right now, the attempt to get the druggies back in there, as a power in Colombia. Look at the job that was done on Peru. Look at what they've done in all these countries. What was the fight we had on Argentina? I was in the middle of that. I was there. I know what happened. I know what happened in the United States: British influence. A Secretary of Defense in the United States [Caspar Weinberger] did everything possible to crush Argentina on the Malvinas issue, and he did it for the British. He was a British agent!
What you people in these countries have to realize, is that your enemy is the British Empire, and your enemy in the United States are the servants of the British Empire. Your enemy is Wall Street, and Wall Street and Boston are the British Empire. That is the enemy. And if you want to go out and say the United States is your enemy, you're being foolish. It is not the United States that's your enemy. It's the British Empire, and British imperial influence which is our enemy.
I was there. I was in on the fight. The government of Mexico asked me to assist them on this question. I was involved. I know what we planned to do. It could have been done. And the problem would have been solved as we intended. I've been in country after country where I've been involved in these kinds of things. I know what these guys do.
When people talk about the United States being the problem, yes, we've got some problems in the United States, but it doesn't help us when you kiss the butt of the British.
The Planet Can No Longer Tolerate the British System
Freeman: The next question moves now to yet another continent, to Africa. And the question is: "Mr. LaRouche, as you know, representatives from many of the world's nations have been gathered in New York City for the UN General Assembly meetings. And although we have been gathered there, we have had very little opportunity to discuss what really are some of the most vital questions concerning the continued existence of human life on whole regions of this planet. However, we did have the opportunity for more productive discussion during certain sections of the parallel meetings that were conducted during the Clinton Global Initiative. For many of us in the developing sector, we have come to view those opportunities as supplanting the proceedings of the UN General Assembly.
"During one workshop, which was admittedly smaller than some of the others, we had the opportunity to discuss the implications of extending your NAWAPA proposal into Africa, and we very much appreciated the video presentation that was carried on your website, especially because it has become so rare that any discussion regarding the African continent be one of great steps forward in developing. So any taste of optimism is most appreciated.
"However, as I am sure you are aware, within just a few months, we may find a situation on the continent of Africa where two of the greatest nations, and most significant nations, Nigeria and Sudan, suffer internal destabilizations and war. I understand that your methodology moves from the top down, and not from the bottom up, yet for those of us with responsibility for our continent, we can not sit by passively, hoping for positive developments from the United States and the rest of the advanced sector, while chaos is unleashed here, and therefore we are desperately trying to find some policy that we can pursue that will avoid unnecessary death and further worsening of a situation which is already dire. And I am wondering if you have any advice for us, as we try to lead our nations and our populations in this crisis?"
LaRouche: My God. Chain reaction.
Well, it has to be done from the top. But what you're saying really, your argument, which is really quite valid in itself, as to what the effect is: it's obvious there is nothing that can be done except from the top. Because we are now on the verge of a general breakdown crisis, a general collapse of the entire planet, and this is being orchestrated largely through Jacob Rothschild's Inter-Alpha Group, which controls a fairly estimated 70% of the world's banking, which is largely fake. It's fake banking, but it controls the world. It controls the world because the only thing that has saved the nations in the past, was the times when the United States was fighting some of these characters. And when the United States is under the wrong government, the world has not got a cold, it's got fatal pneumonia.
And therefore, if you can not defeat this, you can not win. That doesn't mean I'm a pessimist. Quite the contrary. I've spent my life, most of my adult life anyway, fighting against this crap. And only by winning the war against this crap can we get anything for any nation. Look what they do! Where is the problem in Sudan? Where does it come from? London! Entirely London! Both sides in Sudan! You have a section that is controlled, an operation inside Sudan, which is controlled, two operations, matter of fact, which are controlled by London! The overall operation against the President of Sudan is coming from London. From George Soros or "tsouris" as he's called otherwise. Same thing.
So you can not win inch-wise under an imperial planet. You have to defeat the Empire, and there is only one empire on the planet, especially with the United States playing successor, and that is the British Empire.
What do you have to know? In 1968, as the result of the killing of Kennedy, the capitulation to a long war in Indo-China, the United States lost its power and lost its position in the world, and the British took over. It was the most indecent thing imaginable. On the one side, in one door—through George Shultz and company, and Arthur Burns—in one door, walks the cancellation of the Bretton Woods system. At the same time, from the other door, in comes Jacob Rothschild with what takes over the world, the Inter-Alpha system that controls 70% of the world's banking, directly and indirectly, combined.
So what is the problem? The problem is that we are submitting to the British Empire! And if you are not going to attack the British Empire, recognize the enemy, you do not understand the situation. What are we going to get? The British are not going to win this one. If they destroy us, they are going to be destroyed, automatically, immediately, by themselves. We are now looking at a potential dark age of two or three generations, if we don't win. So there is no substitute for winning this war against them! No one has an answer, unless we win this war against them.
We have come to a breaking point in history, in which we must win this war. And I am standing here today, when a lot of my good friends in the U.S. system are allowing themselves to become confused. Why aren't they staying in Washington, to ram through Glass-Steagall? You want to win. Put Glass-Steagall through now, and I know how to deliver a victory to you.
If you don't do that, if you don't want to do that, there is nothing that I, or anybody else, can do for any of your nations. You are all doomed, because we are looking at the potential right now of a planetary dark age. And if your local economist doesn't agree with that, then fire him, or send him into someplace for mental-health care.
No, that is the answer. You have got to understand this. We are not talking about Mr. Fixit. I am not a Mr. Fixit. I have been involved in the Mr. Fixit business, and I was good at it, but it's not a good business to be in. You don't make any permanent victories, you just fix things, until somebody comes along and wrecks it, and makes it even worse.
So therefore, what we need now—we have to come to the point, the planet can no longer tolerate this system. The system is the British system. The British Empire must be destroyed. It's time for that thing to be shot down. And if you don't do it, you are going to be in Hell. The planet is going to be in Hell. You have no choice, no acceptable choice, but to win. You want to compromise? Don't be a damned fool all your life! We have to beat these guys, and we have come to the point that you have no other choice. Beat them, or go to Hell. You have no other choice. And that is the only condition, the right condition for war, when you have no choice. Because anything else is Hell, and you can not vote for Hell. Therefore you fight.
The Universe Is Creative
Freeman: This set of questions comes from people associated with what we've come to refer to as the Stanford Group, and the question is as follows:"Well, Lyn, just when we thought we had achieved a better understanding of what you meant when you referred to infrastructure, and what actually constituted real infrastructure projects, you moved the goalposts on us with this concept of "platforms." So we decided to try to figure out what you were talking about, and in an attempt to better understand what you were developing, we embarked on a project to look at longer spans of human history.
"Now, I'm not entirely sure that we are addressing this correctly, which is why I want to present it to you and see what you say. But our findings actually were very interesting to us, so hopefully, they're not wrong. But what we found was that, if you look at human society over long periods of time, that it seems that each era of human development is best characterized by the key energy source of that society, and that human beings inhabiting this planet have moved, roughly speaking, from wood as a principal source of energy, to coal, to fossil fuels, etc.—obviously we're skipping many steps here, but, it does seem that that is what defines human progress. It also became clear to us that that progress from one system to the next is not apparently linear, but it seems to move almost in leaps, to new plateaus.
"Now, this raises an interesting question, because if that is in fact true, that the leap in human progress from one system to the next is measured by the source of fuel that we use, etc., one of the questions that came up is that then, in the course of trying to drive human progress and drive us to the next step, it would seem that rather than the attempt to conserve the source of fuel of any given society, that actually a policy which drives the depletion of that source seems to be the motor for driving us to then a newer, more efficient form of production.
"And really, what we're asking is whether we're thinking about this in the right way, because, in fact, if we are, it would also seem that the argument that any new era for life on this planet has to be characterized by nuclear energy production as opposed to, say, wind power or solar power, is actually how you measure whether we are going forward, or whether we are going backwards as a society, not simply as a nation or something like that, but really in much more profound terms, as a species as a whole.
"But again, we're not sure we're looking at this in quite the right way, so we'd like your comments."
LaRouche: Well, there are two things to this thing. First of all, it is true that we tend to deplete—I was talking about this before on this particular platform—that what happens is, that we don't do much destruction, shall we say, of raw materials, but we do make a mess of it, because most of the minerals that we get are actually a product of living processes, actions on this planet.
There is, generally, a great underestimation of the power of life in the universe. Life is not something which is the exception. Life is not only a co-equal of everything else, it's a power which is greater than that. And then you have only one thing which is greater than that, and that's the power of the human mind, which is not just a physical thing. So therefore, you have to expect that you are going to have a depletion of the organization of materials that we use for production and consumption all along. So therefore, you have to go ahead.
Now mankind is intrinsically creative, and the biggest problem we've had in the history of mankind is people talk about fixed systems. But the point is, mankind's success has always been based on denying fixed systems.
The planet is a wonderful thing to look at, and this recent scandal down there in the Caribbean [the BP Gulf oil spill—ed.] helped us to look at this thing, because how deep do we go to find the products of living processes? And this blow-up of this oil hole, this petroleum hole, just forced us to look a little bit deeper than we were accustomed to looking conventionally. The whole public was suddenly exposed to this. This was Hell.
So therefore, first of all, the planet is under the domination of living processes, and the Solar System is also living processes. They are very powerful, and the human mind is more powerful than any of them. And the point is progress. Now, how can progress be maintained? Well, mankind, all kinds of things are creative. The universe is creative. Inherently creative. This whole idea about entropy, universal entropy, second law of thermodynamics? It's all crap. There's no truth to it at all. Throw it away. You solve most of your problems by throwing that piece of junk away. It's a fraud, cooked up in the 19th Century. There is no such thing. Only among idiots.
But then, you find the planet, the universe is organized. It's developing! Vernadsky made this thing clear. The universe is progressing; it's evolving to a higher state, and at the expense of the lower state. And it's always progressing. But there's one thing about men. With men, this creative power is willful. Human species, animal species are creative.
Creativity: More Fun Than Sex!
Look, you take the history of the planet, and you find that living processes on the planet were, for a long time, unicelled or less. It was a long time to get to organisms of more than one cell. We wasted most of our time on that, as life did, to get to this point. Then we got to higher forms of life. We had the destruction of Tyrannosaurus Rex. (I guess that's why they called him "wrecks," hmmm?) We went to higher forms of life.
And we have man, and man is willfully creative. There is no other species that is willfully creative. Every species, every part of the planet, every part of the universe as we know it, is creative. It's not fixed. It's not a fixed system. But the mind of man is the greatest power in this universe that we know of. The creativity of the human mind. And if you want to be a successful human being, use your mind! Use it for creative things. Don't say this is a stress on you! This should be your rejoicing. This should be your pleasure. It's much more fun than sex, in case you have any knowledge of this thing. So why don't you do it?
And therefore, the trick here is to understand this, and study it more carefully, and realize that we know things essentially—we're on the edge of knowledge, of practical knowledge, of things which propose questions to us. Well, what's wrong with that? You find that you've thought about something before. You didn't settle the question. You made an approximate discovery. You made a step in progress, in better understanding. Then you come back and you look at it again, and you find out you didn't really know what you were talking about yet. What you said was not wrong, but it wasn't yet right! So now you make another discovery and you revise what you thought you had discovered. So that's a good thing. That's what we do.
The other part of this thing is, we rely—and this is going to get you a little more upset, but that's all right; it's good for you. You like challenges: The greatest problem we have today is a misunderstanding of the nature of the human mind. We think of the human mind—most people think of it—they'll tell you that, automatically. They will say, "We have a nervous system. We have sense-perceptual powers. And what we know of the universe is through our sense-perceptual powers." And some people will say, foolishly, "That's all we know. Only what we know as products of sense perception." And foolish people believe that. Smarter people know that something else is going on—which I specialize in.
So therefore, we don't understand human creativity, and we don't understand the human identity, because we assume that our sense perceptual powers are the human mind, and the sense perceptual powers are not the human mind. The human mind is a higher form of existence. And we can demonstrate that in all kinds of ways.
One of the best examples, and it always occurs in the areas of creativity: Where do you find the expression of this kind of creativity, beyond the idea of sense perception? What is beyond sense perception? What is creativity beyond sense perception? Does it exist anywhere else, as witting creativity?
It doesn't. Only human beings. We don't know of anything else that does that. No other animal has willful creativity. The universe is creative. The processes in it are creative. They change. They evolve to higher states, from lower states to higher states. Not surprising. But only man can willfully create a higher physical state in the universe.
On what do we rely for that? We rely on what we call Classical artistic composition. Creativity is bringing into being what you didn't know existed before, and you examine the cases in which this occurs, and you study mankind from this standpoint. The most important thing about studying, is studying mankind, because in the history of mankind, we find creativity, willful creativity which creates states of nature. We find that in the case of Einstein, for example, and minds of that type in physical science, they create the idea of new states of nature that were not previously known, and the idea of how to handle those new states of nature, to understand them, which to us didn't exist before then. This is what mankind does.
And therefore, the intellect, the human mind, is not located in sense perception. As a matter of fact, one of the great foolishnesses is in trying to interpret the human mind as such, as being a product of the accumulation of sense perception. It's not. There are many, many kinds of manifestations of that.
So, the point is, we have to be proactive in terms of the concept of human creativity. Voluntary creativity by human beings, as typified by Classical artistic composition, as actually the typification of this human discovery. And since we are human beings, and we have this capability, which no form of animal life does, shouldn't we make this capability our essential profession? Why should we object to having to be creative? Since it's our natural condition, maybe our unhappiness would be less if we spend more time on creativity, and less on certain lower forms of diversions.
And that's the answer. There is no such thing as an effective dichotomy of physical existence and mental existence, not when you talk about human mind. There is no such dichotomy.
And that's where the mistake comes. You say, well, let's be practical. Being practical is sometimes a word for being stupid. Where you deny the existence of creativity. You deny the role of the imagination. Now, the imagination can be a bit of a troublesome thing to deal with, but that's precisely what you should be concerned by. Are you managing this imagination properly? That's called Classical artistic composition.
That is typified by the way in which the work of Bach on the well-tempered system defined all great music up through Brahms, in composition. That's a typification. That's the meaning of irony in Classical poetry. It's the meaning of all great entertainment in terms of artistic entertainment. It's the secret of all art; it's the essence of Man. Why should we have to go down to a lower level than the essence of Man in dealing with Man's behavior?
So, the imagination and the products of the imagination, which are creativity—and I'll give you an example which you can think about. What we've uncovered, simply by doing this work, and it's been done actually in some matter of weeks—we just got onto this thing and said, finally, we're going to do it. And in a matter of weeks, we have shaken this planet by what we've circulated on this issue. There are other people who knew this, but it was sitting fallow, it wasn't being pushed on, it wasn't being worked on.
And here's the great thing that could get us out of this mess, this NAWAPA project, because it embodies a principle of action, a change of action getting loose, breaking the bonds, getting out there, and doing the things that should have been done all along. And we just got on this thing; we put some devotion into it, especially in the Basement. We pushed it through, step by step, and the thing blossomed; just by our doing the work, just doing the obvious things. Piece falls into piece. "Oh, this means this"; "Oh, this means this"; "Oh, this means that." It's how all great scientific work functions is that way.
So, why don't we just say we are not going to be slaves trying to propitiate young fools who don't want to be creative. What we are going to do is—and considering the condition of the children we're seeing these days, we better get some creativity going back here again. We're in trouble as a species if we don't do that.
So, that's the way to look at it. This is not a problem. You're on the right track in looking at this this way. It's not the answer, but it's a step on the right track. And what we have to do is enjoy ourselves, by making the kinds of discoveries which are a part of work. And my view is, that this issue, of what the implications of NAWAPA are, and that we know what some of the implications are for Russia, what's going on in Russia in some thinking on this part. We know there is no hope for Africa, except by this route. There is no possible hope. There is no hope for India without this; for China. We have got to make these changes. We have got to bring the rate of human progress up to more than the level of human urgent need. We have got to have more progress than the increase of the urgency of reform. We have to educate more people; we have to bring more people together who do want to do this, in order to provide enough energy to save humanity from what is otherwise an inevitable disaster.
So, keep at it! It's great! I'm glad to hear about it.
Beyond the Periodic Table
Freeman: This is from the same basic group, although from another committee of this group. And they say: "Lyn, it's become increasingly clear to us that the question of the refutation of the second law of thermodynamics is absolutely critical to any viable of method of economic planning. And therefore, we have spent a lot of time on it, and we have spent a lot of time looking at the contributions of Vernadsky, with some help from friends abroad and elsewhere. But, we've also run into a certain problem which we hope you can clarify for us. You have said in some of your writings, that the three domains that Vernadsky identifies, in terms of the Noösphere, the Biosphere, and the Lithosphere, all exhibit a primary functional quality of anti-entropy. That essentially, all three domains are inherently anti-entropic, and that they proceed from relatively lower to higher orders of the equivalent of energy-flux density, and to higher orders of organization.
"Now, here is the problem that we've encountered. We can see this, and we can see this quality in the interaction of the Noösphere and the Biosphere, but it is not clear to us when viewing the Lithosphere. And we are hoping that you can shed a little bit more light on why it is that you're saying this, and how you view it. It's possible that it's only in the longest-range effects that this is exhibited, and that's why we're having this difficulty, but maybe you can clarify."
LaRouche: I think the difficulty is not real. I think it's more that the apparent reality has taken over from the reality. We looking at this stuff in relevant chemistry, and the way in which this distinction is made, the lines of division between so-called Lithosphere and Biosphere, for example, as also the question of the Noösphere. The wrong definition is being imposed artificially. This involves a lot of it in biological science. We don't know presently, how much of what we would call Lithosphere was not created by Biosphere.
Now, what this means is, that the whole universe is one process, which is anti-entropic. In other words, you don't have an independent department called Lithosphere, as distinct from an independent department called Biosphere, and from Noösphere. The way this thing functions, they function interdependently, and we are getting, the more we look at this thing, and the more we drag in from what other people are doing, it becomes obvious.
See, first of all, we've got a problem. The problem is, we define—we are still using the Periodic Table, which is not a bad table, but we're imposing upon it an ontological presumption which is not true. We're assuming that particles exist as particles, and we're looking at the Periodic Table as developed out of the genesis of this. We're looking at it in a sense from a standpoint, a reductionist standpoint. And despite the great quarrel about Louis de Broglie and his so-called discovery and questions, we're failing to consider the fact that this whole conception is all wrong. And, that's where the problem lies.
What is obvious, is that everything in the universe, the characteristic of anti-entropy from a universal standpoint, is, you have simpler forms that become more complicated.
For example, you have the question of the Sun. A young Sun is out there, frisky as hell, spinning like mad. You know how young people are, they tend to spin. They're wild on the dance floor. Well, the Sun is just like that. But then this Sun began to spin off—they call it shedding rotation—and began to shed rotation.
And this is some fun I had back in 1980, out there in San Francisco, on the question of the LASNEX measurement. It's a government standard, taking every thermonuclear explosion and so forth, which is tested, and putting it through this calculator called LASNEX. And I said, "Well, look, you guys could help me out. I know this may be a secret, but maybe some parts of this, we could discuss."
And so I posed the question, I said, "Since we know that if the Sun were throwing off material where it were going to be distributed throughout the Solar System, which the Sun was creating, and what we have now, on that basis of that estimate, would get us up in the Periodic Table to iron, but not all the way to uranium: Isn't there something wrong in the simplistic calculation of how this thing works?" And after about a year or so later, the answer came back: "You're right; it's polarized."
So, the process of fusion in generating the ingredients of the Solar System as a whole, is obviously dependent upon a process of polarized fusion reaction.
So now you have all this material, and the Sun, internally, has a very limited repertoire, by the standard of the Periodic Table. So you have all this stuff, and all these planets, things floating around there, with all these isotopes and so forth, and their subdivisions, and you say, "Wait a minute; this is fun. This Solar System is much more creative than people had thought it was." Gauss would love this; he would love this discussion about this.
So, the assumption is, it has to be that the universe does not function as a particle universe. We are dealing with—for example, there is no empty space out there. You're travelling between Earth and Mars; there's no empty space. There's cosmic radiation! It's saturated with all kinds of cosmic radiation. How do you think we live? We deal with this now in the Basement all the time. We have this protection against radiation from the Sun, which is provided to us by ozone, and the ozone was developed by the Earth. Now it has forms of life which help to do this, and it gets to a certain point, you have the ozone layer is generated. Now all these forms of life are able to proliferate underneath the protection of the ozone layer.
So, the universe is much more creative inherently, in more ways than we had presumed. So, the problem lies in the sense of trying to come up with a simple formula for an aged professor with his yellowed pages of footnotes, and notes, and cards, who wants a simple explanation of this thing. And we're in a process of discovering a universe which has run ahead of us in its ingenuity. And it's doing things that we have to discover that it's doing. And we try to limit ourselves then to what we think is legal. We go to the textbook, and it's like the old professor with the yellowing cards, and he goes in and gives a lecture 20 years later. Mostly it's the old cards; he's got a few fresh ones stuck in there with a few notations in it for his lecture notes, and they're just not keeping up with the universe in terms of this.
So, I think the answer to this is, the universe has to be understood from a higher level. I would put the crucial thing here, as I have done, on the nature of the human mind. The human mind is not a product of sense perception. The human mind is not defined by what we call the five senses. There are all kinds of behaviors which are characteristic of a universe which is composed of a perfectly dense domain of cosmic radiation, in all kinds of ranges. Some of these ranges correspond to human behavior, and to living behavior of a certain type. Others do not. And they all interact, and the system is much more complex than anything we've estimated so far.
So we have to open our minds to looking for, for example, forms of communication which we know well. Forms of communication that are not limited to the five senses. And you can test that; they're not limited to the five senses. So therefore, we're dealing with processes of the human mind and other kinds of processes, which don't correspond to our presumptions. And what do you do in a case like this? Don't close the book. Accept the evidence, and challenge it. If you can think of the experiment, the relevant experiment, run it.
What we're getting in the Basement more and more, is just exactly that. The more you do, the more you investigate, the more you discover. It's when you sit back with a textbook and say "This is it, now I'm going to interpret it all," that you're in trouble. You always have to look for what's beyond what you think you know. And just enjoy doing it; make it a habit, and you will discover more things. It's when you close your mind and try to settle that this is the fixed system of the universe without change, this Aristotelian thing, or even worse, the Sarpian nonsense, that's when we get into trouble.
So I think, just have fun! Keep an open mind, think about these things that I've mentioned; we will come back to discuss them later.
Infrastructure as a Platform
Freeman: Okay, Lyn, this comes back to the question of infrastructure. And the question is this: "Lyn, obviously when we look at the entire map of the United States, there are a whole series of immediate needs that present themselves. Obviously, the energy grid as a whole is a disaster, and there is no question that we have to address overall questions of transportation—even President Obama has come to favor the idea of high-speed rails—but certainly for anybody who has been forced to travel up and down the East Coast corridor, there is no question that this would represent an improvement in the quality of life of a very significant portion of the U.S. population.
"It's also clear that such projects produce jobs. Those jobs can be looked at as being productive jobs, and that's all well and good. But then, if we take a look at what you have proposed as the NAWAPA project, the criterion seems to change somewhat. Because certainly NAWAPA fills a critical need, in terms of the delivery of fresh water. It also, without question, would provide an awful lot of jobs. But it is also the case that the more one looks at the overall implications of NAWAPA, ranging from the role of chlorophyll, to various other discrete things that could be brought up, the fact is, that when you talk about a project like that, what you're actually talking about is not only providing jobs and filling a need, but what you really are doing essentially, is, you are, at least potentially, changing the nature of the planet.
And that is, you know, it took a while for that to hit us as an idea, but then when it did, it made the whole project take on new dimensions. And certainly, anything else that we were considering in terms of energy production, in terms of high-speed rail, and things that were really nifty in our planning phase, seemed to kind of pale in comparison.
"So, the question is, how does one proceed? I mean, do we therefore say that we have limited capabilities, and therefore, unless something really changes every aspect of the atmosphere of the Earth, that we don't pursue it? I guess what I'm really asking is, does this become the criterion for whether or not we call something infrastructure, or whether we just consider it a fix for something that's broken?"
LaRouche: I would say that why I've used the term platforms is for precisely this reason. Don't try to make this categorical distinction of infrastructure as something which is not productive, but just treat it as a platform, as a system of organization, which is universal, more or less universal, which you're operating within. And look at the environment. You are creating a new kind of physical space-time, that's all. And so now you define what range it is, and you find that there are discrete levels at which there are breaking points.
Look, you can just imagine the discovery that was made by mankind, of transoceanic navigation. What does that say? What does Einstein say about that, later? That the universe is finite; that the star system is finite. Otherwise, how can you have this kind of thing functioning? How can you navigate?
For example, take the changes, the cycle of changes which is in the range of 1,800 years or so, in terms of the North Magnetic Pole. Take all the other changes that occur within the framework of this system, astronomical system. Do you realize that Einstein, when he commented on Kepler's discovery of gravitation, said the universe is finite, but not bounded? What is the star system? Talking about the same thing. So, the ancient mariners had, in a sense, come upon the same phenomenon indicating a similar kind of conclusion: that the star system somehow involves a finite system with internal laws of behavior associated with it.
So that, I think, is the way you have to look at this. So we go through different states, you look at the stellar array. What is the universe doing? It's going through different states, different states of existence. You've got all of this, what are these astronomists doing after all? What are we doing with all these kinds of things of instrumentation? It's just exactly that.
And so, what you have in any particular system, is a system which corresponds to a state of the system; that's the way we deal with it. I say we should look at this, and we are going to be looking at this more and more, through the idea of cosmic radiation, the universality of cosmic radiation. Cosmic radiation which is distinguished not by particles, but by singularities within the system. And look at it from that standpoint; just keep an open mind. Because the universe is an evolving universe; it's developing. We are some part of it; we are some important part of this thing. Do we know the answer? Of course not! So what? That's half the fun. Find the next answer.
And what we should do, essentially, looking at the NAWAPA project in these terms, what we're doing now, which makes me very happy, is, we're looking at the system. And what are we going to get out of this? We're going to get out of all these engineers and scientists and so forth, who are crucial factors inside the system of the development of NAWAPA: NAWAPA is going to become a new university in practice, because of all the kinds of activities which we know now are implicit in that work. So, we're going to take a whole generation of young people, and older people, too, and they're going to, in fact, have a virtual new university, which is based on the implications of this. This is huge! NAWAPA implications already are huge.
We're looking, we're talking about the Arctic area. The Arctic area is a whole area of study; it has never been really cracked. A lot is known about it, but it has never been cracked. We're talking about Siberia; it also has lots of unknowns, under the permafrost problem, and so forth.
The point is, that you have people who are actively involved in these kinds of projects, which NAWAPA is: It's a change in the state and the system you are operating in. What are you going to do? Are you going to have the activity we call university laboratory activity? Because you're going to have, as a natural part of the process, the investigation of what this all means, and what we're experimenting with.
We're going to look at this in terms of, how does the Sun allow this thing we call Earth, without people on it, to come into being? We are going to try to change some of this, so naturally we're going to have to ask some questions about what we do, before we do it. What is that? That means that you're going to take a whole lot of people who are interested in this, and they're going to go through a whole new layer of subject matter in education. And you're going to find that the activity of the NAWAPA itself becomes a generator of the universe, and also of universities.
It means that, with the exchanges now between Russia, in its territory, and the U.S., the problems in China, the same thing, all become part of this great study we are going to do, which is provoked upon us, because we are meddling with things that mankind has not meddled with before. And if you're going to do that, you're going to be serious about it, and responsible. So, you're going to have the activity assembled to assess, from time to time, what the hell are we doing here. What are we doing? What are the implications of what we're doing? What are we discovering that we didn't know before? What's that? That's the ideal university, and so the project itself will become a kind of university. It will become a determinant of what the exchange papers are written about, and that sort of thing.
And I say, the future is obvious to us; we have been discussing this a good deal. It's obvious we've got to take the Periodic Table, redefine it; not throw it out, but redefine it from a standpoint of not assuming particles, but assuming singularities in a system of cosmic radiation.
For example, cancer research. Big problem, important. All kinds of areas. Let's go at cosmic research. We're gambling with treatments for cancers, so why don't we just raise it up a notch? Let's look at cosmic radiation in general; let's get some evidence in on cosmic radiation. Instead of trying to find the thing that works, why not try to find a systematic answer as to how we should define how it works? And a project like NAWAPA is the natural generator of a new platform of conception of Man on Earth in all kinds of respects.
My view, my term for this is "fun." I mean, this kind of exploration to me, under this kind of condition, is what I always considered fun. It probably is a result of being a hard-boiled management consultant for a while: They think that way. Treat problems, and enjoy problems, because they could be fun; finding the answers, finding the solution. Getting stuck in the same old rut all the time is not fun; it's boring. And I think people would live longer if they had more fun of this type; some of the other types we might do without.
Obama: Why the Zebra Won't Change Its Stripes
Freeman: There are a series of questions on the current political situation that have come in from various and sundry institutions here in Washington and elsewhere. One question, though, has been raised in different forms by several people who represent a very significant layer of U.S. institutions. The question as formulated is this: "Lyn, as we know you know, since Obama's vacation up there in Martha's Vineyard, he was visited by a parade of leading Democrats representing, really, all factions of the Democratic Party, who all brought him the same message, which was that a significant shift in his policy and outlook was necessary if, in fact, any semblance of orderly governance was to proceed. And people gave him a very sober view of how he is viewed by the U.S. population, and how he is viewed by U.S. institutions.
"Now, in the wake of that, and in the wake of some direct confrontations with the U.S. population, we have witnessed a variety of developments. One is, obviously, the reorganization of Obama's economic team, which was signaled by, probably most significantly, the exit of Larry Summers, but which was also related to increasing denunciations of Peter Orszag, to statements by Obama, and communications that Obama has engaged in, in which he is indicating that he doesn't understand where the idea that he was against Glass-Steagall came from; and that, in fact, during the Presidential campaign, he campaigned on the platform of Glass-Steagall, and in fact campaigned for greater economic regulation.
"It's also the case on economic policy, obviously, in some attempt to respond to the demands of the population as the elections draw near, he has stepped up the schedule for the meeting of the Doomsday Group, and now apparently Geithner is convening their first meeting on Oct. 1. There are other things that could be referred to—the bringing in of Elizabeth Warren [to head the Consumer Finance Protection Agency—ed.], which had been strenuously opposed by Obama's economic team.
"But even beyond the question of economics, we know now that Rahm Emanuel is leaving in October, to run his, presumably, mayoral campaign in Chicago. It came out yesterday that David Axelrod would be leaving. And for many of us who were part of that parade of visitors to the President while he was in Martha's Vineyard, we have arrived at a certain point of guarded optimism that, if for no other reason than a desire to survive and to protect his legacy, even if it is as a one-term President, that we will see an increasing shift in Obama's policy.
"Now, we qualify this optimism by saying that it's guarded, but something that we wish to pursue. You are normally extremely optimistic, yet it seems that you have rejected the idea that, in the terms of one of your spokesmen, that 'the zebra will change its stripes.' So, really, we would like you to comment on this. Why do you think it's impossible to see change in this context?"
LaRouche: On the 11th of April of 2009, I presented my summation of my conclusions on the personality of the President, his clinical state of mind, and I've been proven right ever since. He's never deviated from what I anticipated he would do. I would say that any other view, from my standpoint, would be a very foolish one. Any contrary estimate would be extremely foolish. There is no possibility of that. You are dealing with a type which is well known in history, particularly in psychiatric history. It's the type of the failed personality which, given a situation of great authority, will do exactly what the Emperor Nero did, and what Adolf Hitler did, who were both failed personalities of this type.
And that's the way Obama is going to go, and that's why I said the major thing you have to worry about: We can not have him commit suicide, because it has been the history of these types, they tend to commit suicide under such conditions. I've insisted that this President must be watched, because we are reaching the point where he's likely to commit suicide, and we don't want a suicide of a President at this time of crisis. We don't like suicide in general, but in that, in particular.
There is no hope that Obama would ever reform for the better. Absolutely not. He has no personality, not a real identity. It's only a fake personality. And there is much evidence as to what may have contributed to this; but what I saw in terms of his policy, then, in April of last year, this guy: no change, only for the worse. The plunger goes down, the explosion goes off.
What we have to worry about is the effect of an assassination or a suicide of this President. That should be our biggest concern, as far as he is concerned. Any other diagnosis, forget it! I've seen this thing. I know exactly what he is. I've seen a lot of this in my life, my experiences, and so forth. Personality problems. He's not going to change for the better. The only way he's going to change for the better is by being safely out of office. And then under management, he might make it, personally.
But as long as he's involved with the Presidency, there's no chance. He's a typical echo of the Emperor Nero and Hitler. And there's a lot of other cases like that, but these are the two most conspicuous ones, the ones I referred to. And he has never deviated from the estimate of him and his behavior which I gave publicly on the 11th of April last year. Not a chance.
The problem is, we have got to get him out. And the problem is, politicians are trying to act like politicians, trying to negotiate something. And some things are not negotiable. There are lots of things that can be negotiated, but some things can not. This is not a negotiable situation. Either we get this guy out now, or kiss the United States goodbye while you still can.
Freeman: I'd like to bring the proceedings today to a close, with the promise that questions that have not been entertained that are worth entertaining, will be entertained, and also to put before you a message that came in from Europe, from someone in Spain, which I think really ends things on an appropriate note. He says, "Mr. LaRouche, I'm a 41-year-old architect with artistic training and humanistic interests, who lives in the central region of Spain, near Madrid. I want to tell you that your existence has been, for me, an oasis of peace. To learn that people so different in age and background have similar ideas to yours on matters such as the intelligence and creativity of human beings, has truly restored my hope for this civilization.
"My parents, who are of Christian background, always taught me to seek that which unites me with other human beings, rather than to concentrate on differences. However, I observe that it is not the same for all human beings. So, thank you for having given inspiration to future generations. The idea that one shouldn't be cautious, but should move to inspire others with what one is, appears to me to be a true revolution for today's time. Cowardice and discretion appear to me to have invaded every area, and certainly your writings and your actions overthrow those negative impulses. So, again, thank you for your writings, for your teachings, and keep up the good work."